"Likely the most widely read living poet in Ireland", The Stinging Fly magazine.
If you wish to invite Kevin to give a poetry reading, do a talk or facilitate a writing workshop email kphiggins@hotmail.com or phone 087-6431748.

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Saturday, 16 July 2016

"administrative suspension"-UK Labour Party Head Office Object To Pro-Corbyn Satires

I yesterday received a letter, see below, from Ms Katherine Buckingham, Head of Disputes and Discipline at UK Labour Party Head Office in London informing me that I am now subject to a "an administrative suspension from holding office or representing the Labour Party."

I am an overseas member of the British Labour Party; as most people know I live in Galway on the West coast of Ireland. I was born in London in 1967 and so am entitled to membership as a member of Labour International. I am a full member of the party, having joined last July. I hold no office in and have never claimed to represent the British Labour Party. Most people would not even be aware that I am a member of it. However, I did help organise and edit the online publication '21 Poems, 21 Reasons To Choose Jeremy Corbyn' as part of last summer's leadership election campaign, which included poems by a number of prominent UK & Irish poets.

My understanding is that the "comments made on social media" referred to in Ms Buckingham's letter are the sharing, see below, of three of my satirical poems lampooning Jeremy Corbyn's opponents in the Labour Party.

The first poem is a satire about pro-war former Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn MP, which was first published in The Morning Star newspaper last December.

The second poem is a satirical re-write of the Bruce Springsteen song 'The Ghost of Tom Joad', dedicated to right wing Labour MP for Mansfield, John Mann, who is most famous for chasing Ken Livingstone up some stairs in front of the media while shouting about Mein Kampf. 'The Ghost of Miniscule John Mann' was published last summer on Ireland's leading alternative literature website The Bogman's Cannon.

The third poem was also published in The Morning Star newspaper last summer, and it ridicules Jeremy Corbyn's detractors, quite reasonably comparing them to a variety of discredited characters in British history.

This is a clear attempt to interfere with my right to free speech, and indeed artistic freedom. Clearly those who long for the good old days when the British Labour Party could be summed up by the pictures below, don't like being laughed at.

There is, of course, no prospect at all that I'm going to stop laughing at the politically ridiculous. Some people tend to be endlessly surprised at the re-appearance of The Inquisition, for that is what this is.

However, I am always expecting them.

Those of you who are so minded can register your opposition to this smaller, and altogether less stylish, latter day inquisition by contacted Labour Party General Secretary Ian McNicol here

Social media shares of this blog post would also be appreciated.

In the meantime, my most recent satire on Jeremy Corbyn's critics was published on the UK based Socialist Unity site on Monday. It's called 'A Regressive Centrist Speaks Electability' and is dedicated to former feminist intellectual and Murdoch hackette Caitlin Moran, pictured below.